Denver.

It's time for this biweekly meeting of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee of Denver City Council.

Join us for the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee starting now.

All right, good afternoon, and welcome to the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

My name is Chantill M.

Lewis, and I'm a council person for District 8.

Today is Wednesday, May 6th, and I'd like to take the privilege to tell my sister happy birthday.

It's her birthday.

With that, we can start with online introductions.

I know we have at least one council member online, and then we'll go into the room.

Hi, Councilwoman Flora Librez, Less Lucky District 7.

I think that's the only council members.

Okay Councilman.

Hi, Diana Romero Campbell, Southeast Denver District 4.

Sorry you pop on there.

Yep, that's okay.

Thank you.

Alright, who are you?

I would just start with saying brave enough to uh face the great blue 2026.

Paul Cashman South Denver District 6.

Great.

Thank you so much.

So we just have one briefing today, and um if you all can introduce yourselves and jump in.

Great.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Uh, my name is Dave Laporte.

I'm the Chief Operating Officer for the Denver International Airport.

Our CEO, Phil Washington, uh is running just a little bit late.

I think that he will join us uh here shortly.

But I'm here with two of my colleagues, uh Chris Herndon, our chief commercial officer, and Jim Starling, our chief construction and infrastructure officer.

Um we're very excited about presenting our 2026 work plan to you today.

Uh we know your time is valuable, so we'll jump right into uh the agenda moving forward.

So our agenda uh today will be a brief overview of what's going on out at the airport, and um we'll get right into those presentations.

We'll save a few minutes at the end uh if you all have any questions.

So a few statistics about the airport just to kind of paint the size of how big our airport is.

Uh in 2025, we set a record with 82.4 million passengers.

Uh, that was large enough for us to be the fourth largest airport in the country and the 10th busiest in the world.

Uh we have 26 airlines that fly to and from Denver, including our three largest airline partners, United, Southwest, and Frontier.

Uh, for 2025, we have flights to 236 nonstop destinations, uh, including 201 domestic destinations, although we just announced a new route that I'll talk about here shortly.

And that is uh to 46 states and one U.S.

territory.

Uh the new flight uh that was just announced is to Roy Roydaso, New Mexico, and that will be served by Contour Airlines.

Uh we also have nonstop flights to 35 international destinations in 19 different countries.

We are um home to about 1,200 different companies that work at Denver with more than 43,000 employees.

And as you know, uh Dan is the largest uh economic engine and contributes 47.2 billion dollars annually to the local economy.

Uh our vision.

Uh our vision reflects our aspiration to emerge as the nation's preeminent aviation thought leader.

Our mission underscores that we rely upon our people to accomplish our goals.

Uh, we value our people a lot.

And our near-term strategic plan is called Vision 100, and that is part of an overall larger strategy called Operation 2045.

Operation 2045 is really the second phase of our strategic plan.

Uh, vision 100 will get us up to 100 million passengers uh annually, and operation 2045.

Uh, we expect about 120 million passengers annually.

Uh, and that just happens to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the airport.

Uh vision 100 includes four different pillars.

Uh the first one we put on there was empowering our people.

Again, we value our people.

Uh secondly, we uh are growing our infrastructure to be able to accommodate those loads that I spoke of.

Uh the third pillar is maintaining what we have and finally expanding our global connections.

And one of our goals is to get a nonstop flight to the continent of Africa.

I do want to point out the uh upper orange or red bar up at the top.

Uh those are our four guiding principles, and they really talk about how we um we guide our work or we behave while we're at work.

We value sustainability, sustainability and resiliency, equity, diversity, inclusion, and accessibility, operational excellence, and enhancing the customer experience.

And of course, safety falls into operational excellence.

Safety is a high probability for it.

This graph shows really a timeline of what Vision 100 and Operation 2045 look like and how they work together.

So you'll see that we expect to be at about 100 million passengers in roughly 2032.

And again, in 2045, we expect to be at about 120 million passengers annually.

Over the past couple of years, the airport has achieved significant milestones.

Again, I mentioned we had 82.4 million annual passengers last year.

And when you put that into perspective, it's really remarkable because the airport was originally built for 50 million annual passengers.

Last year we did 82.4 million passengers.

So we're very, very busy as you all know.

The Great Hall is kind of our our main focus right now to accommodate that growth.

Some successes within that program.

The West security checkpoint opened in February of 2024, and I'm going to show you a little bit of what a success that was.

And we really we reached the 50% completion mark in August of last year, 2025.

In January of this year, we opened the Center of Equity and Excellence in Aviation with a ribbon cutting ceremony, and that again was on January 7th of this year.

There are some new air service developments, along with the one that I just spoke of.

Viva Aerobus inaugurated nonstop service to Monterey, Mexico.

Air Lingus began nonstop service to Dublin.

Breeze Airways began service to Providence, Rhode Island, and Turkish Airlines began nonstop service to Istanbul.

We're very proud of those, all of those routes.

And again, I mentioned the 47.2 billion dollars contributed annually to our economy.

That was really highlighted in a study that CDOT did for us and shows that we are you know a significant economic contributor to this region.

I mentioned the new uh security checkpoints, and this graph uh does a really good job of pointing that out.

ACI, Airport Council International is our trade group, one of our trade groups, and they conduct quarterly customer satisfaction surveys, and we subscribe to that, and uh along with many other airports.

Um customers will rate their experience uh on a five-point scale at each of those airports.

And this what this graph shows is that our security checkpoint scores were not great.

If you remember the congestion that we had in the terminal, uh we had very long security lines, and then in quarter one, we opened up that West Security Checkpoint, and you can see an immediate increase on that blue line.

Um, and again, this is customer satisfaction, but uh almost immediately we saw an increase in customer satisfaction.

Um we got a similar bump when we opened the east security checkpoint.

Uh so our customers are telling us that they really appreciate the work that we've done, and uh we have increased about 18% uh over what our scores were prior to the opening of that checkpoint.

Um and that was the West Security checkpoint.

When we opened the East Security Checkpoint, we got another 12% bump uh in that score.

So overall satisfaction has increased uh fairly significantly for us.

Those are really highlighted uh by our customers in the categories of security wait time, ease of security screening, and overall satisfaction of the airport.

So with that foundation, I'm going to turn our attention to eight really keystone projects that we have that are included in our current focus.

The first of those I talked about a little bit, it's the Great Hall program.

That again is part of Vision 100 and Operation 2045 and increases the capacity in the terminal building for our customers and our airlines.

Again, I mentioned that we were built for 50 million and we handled uh over 82 million last year.

We anticipate that that project uh will be done sometime uh in December of 2027, and the budget on that progress is 2.1 billion.

Uh and I'm happy to report that uh that is ahead of schedule and under budget.

Um, so really good progress with that project.

The next one that I would like to talk about is another one that we hear about from our customers quite a bit.

That's Pena Boulevard.

Hi, Phil.

Um, so this is really the section between I 70 and E470, and we are currently in the NEPA process, the the uh National Environmental Policy Act review uh for that project.

Um the goal of the project uh is is really to increase our capacity in transit to the airport.

We don't know exactly what that is just yet.

We don't want to presuppose what a locally preferred alternative would be, uh, but we expect that NEPA approval to be finished in uh or around quarter two of 2028.

Uh we are going through stakeholder engagement and public uh scoping meetings now.

We are studying alternatives and developing alternatives and then documenting uh that NEPA process as well.

With that, I'll uh introduce Phil Washington.

Did you want to take it from here for that?

Uh yeah, um thank you for having us, uh, chair.

Um, sorry I was late.

We were briefing the DNC.

Yeah, no, you maybe happens.

Yeah, absolutely.

Uh I do want to um go back one slide, if I could, to the Great Hall, um, and just comment on how we are buttoning things up.

Uh, and I'm sure Dave mentioned um that um three distinct areas, the global gateway, which will be on the south of the north end, so international flags, you know, you go through through the customs and all of that.

Um, that area will be what we call the global gateway.

Um, and then we have uh the center of the terminal, which will be the welcome home Colorado area, a lot of Colorado centric kinds of things.

Uh, and then the south end is the living room.

Uh, and the living room um visitors, passengers react, uh, relax, dine, and all of that.

Uh, the key thing I wanted to mention here as we button things up, um, we will be um doing a lot of uh uh replacing tiles that are damaged.

Uh we will be doing uh a lot of um uh two new information booths that will be uh in that international area.

Uh and we're buttoning up the public art, which is gonna be very, very important uh to the Great Hall.

You've seen the renderings and you see here the tree and all of those things.

Uh, but I wanted to point those things out, uh, and you always want to get to buttoning things up.

That means you're close to completing the project.

The original um uh schedule for opening of the Great Hall is mid 2028.

We will beat that by at least six months uh where we will finish up towards the end of 2027, uh if not sooner.

So really wanted to point that out, Conrad.

The consolidated rental car facility, uh centralized rental car.

Uh I was talking to one of my um uh the local infrastructure forefathers uh that uh had a lot to do with the planning for the airport, and he told me that the current rental car area was temporary 30 years ago.

Well, we are correcting that one of the original sins, we're atoning for that by building a consolidated rental car facility.

That rental car facility is well underway with uh preconstruction planning.

We'll be doing some design for that uh between 16,000, 18,000 spaces, and I think that you cannot build a consolidated rental car facility uh without having good transport from the terminal to the facility.

And so we are working on that transport as well, whether that is an automated people mover or something else.

Um, but we're very, very excited about this.

We are looking touring and learning from other consolidated rental car facilities uh around the country.

Uh and so uh we'll keep you posted on that, but that's moving forward.

The C West expansion, this is the last expansion that we can do on the existing concourses.

You know that we have expanded the other ones, you know, the outdoor patios and all of that.

Um the C West expansion is the last one we can do on the existing uh concourses.

This uh gets us, and you can see the schedule here of design and uh the program management team is already in place right now.

Uh it is led by a local um uh small business uh minority firm priming that project instead of subbing it, they're priming it uh with a traditional prime or GC subbing to that small company, and so we have sort of flip-flopped um the you know the the order of things uh with regard to historically underutilized businesses, and so we're well on our way with this.

This gets us to 100 million passengers.

This expansion with 11 new gates that will be on C West gets us to that number, thus Vision 100 that we have put forward.

And so this is a very exciting um project as well.

Um North Terminal, we have forecast for 120 million annual passengers in 2045 when the airport um celebrates its 50th year in an airport, as you know, that was designed for only 50 million.

Um we have Vision 100, and then we have Operation 2045.

Operation 2045, this North Terminal expansion is a part of that, where we are focusing on what we can do to prepare the airport for that 2045, and so we need to build and we are building this north terminal facility, and this is that blue roofed building that you see right there.

That will have additional airline counters, additional security, um, preparing the airport in the region for 120 million annual passengers.

We will have um more international baggage uh and all of those.

The construction timeline for this particular facility as you see there is 2028 to 2033.

So we're gonna start this.

We already have um uh a PMT and that um we're gonna advertise that um we already advertised that with a selection uh momentarily, actually, this quarter.

We will name a uh professional management team to do that.

This facility leads to next slide.

This we have to build that blue roofed facility first, so we can then build concourses coming off that facility.

Each one of these concourses would have 25 gates.

Uh gets us to 120 million annually.

That's the 2045.

Yes.

Yes.

This looks like a long walk.

Well, we're the fittest state in the country.

That's what I heard.

And there you go.

We're looking out for it.

There you go.

And so we're very, very excited about this.

This um uh gets us to that number.

We will build this in phases, and we do not want to build a concourse D.

Right now we have ABC.

We don't want to build a concourse D, we want um a walkable, the other concourses will be walkable, thus lessening the burden of the train for the concourses.

And so this becomes very important.

Uh we'll build um six gates first of this phased approach.

Those six gates will be international gates that we will build first on this particular concourse.

So we have a lot of uh a lot planned for that.

Uh let me ask Dave to do the baggage handling and the AGTS.

Yeah, so uh shortly after 9-11, we invested a lot of money into our package handling system and added screening machines in the baggage channeling system.

Those screening machines have reached the end of their useful life, and Congress uh actually mandated the TSA replace those machines.

So we are running that project um with a grant from TSA to pay for those machines.

Well, the machines are reaching the end of their original life, but so is all the conveyor that leads to those machines.

So as long as we are in doing the construction on the machines, we want to go in and recapitalize the uh conveyor belt that leads up to that.

Um, and eventually baggage claims, curbside um lifts.

Uh there is a lot to the baggage handling system that needs to be replaced.

So we are currently in a project uh on the north end of our terminal right now, uh replacing large portions of our baggage handling system, and uh this will go on for several years.

It's a very complex system, and uh, due to the phasing required because we're still operating, it's gonna be a long project for us.

Uh we currently have a contract with PCL construction that is uh acting as the general contractor on that project, and uh we anticipate um that again going on for at least the next five years.

On the train, Phil mentioned the train.

Uh we refer to it as the AGTS or the automated guideway transit system.

Uh you all know uh that we recently replaced uh some of the first cars that we had at the airport.

Uh that was 16 cars that we replaced, and we added 10 cars to the fleet because of our growth.

So we we have completed an order for 26 new cars.

Now we have the balance of that fleet to replace, and you have approved a contract for that, and those will start delivery sometime in 2027, and that will be completed by 2028.

But cars are only half of really that equation.

Uh there's also the guideway or the the track, if you will, and we have to replace the power distribution system.

Uh many of the switches or all of the switches will be either replaced or refurbished.

Um the signaling system is outdated, and we have to replace the signaling system, which will ultimately allow us to run more trains in the system so we can handle the heavier loads.

Uh, and because the fleet is larger than it ever has been, we have to add on to our maintenance facility where we maintain those vehicles.

Uh, and that contract is moving forward uh now.

So you'll see some contracts uh coming through city council for approval uh regarding those projects coming up.

Um but this also is a multi-year, very complex project.

Asset management.

Yes, I said management.

As I mentioned, you know, our many of our assets are reaching the end of their useful life.

And it's an interesting time for our airport because many of them are happening at or around the same time.

A lot of our assets are reaching the end of their life.

So we have invested in our asset management program very heavily to do condition assessments on all of our assets.

We do those every five years to make sure that we understand what kind of condition our assets are in and to help inform where we want to fund replacement of assets.

So that informs our capital improvement program.

This will be something that we do probably forever because we want to make sure that we take a predictive approach to our assets, that you know, we want to get as much useful life out of them as we can, but we want to we want to either refurbish or replace them right before they fail.

And uh that has already paid uh dividends with us.

We started last year looking at under all the underground piping of the airport.

This is the first real large uh effort that we have done to do that.

Uh so we have sent cameras through already about 70 miles of our piping, and um luckily have found that it's in pretty good condition.

Um but it's good that we know that so that we can properly plan for the future.

The last area that we wanted to cover was the alternative energy piece.

Um, you will recall that we put out a request for information for alternative energy options.

Uh our concern was and still is uh that uh this airport at some point can be uh energy independent, um, that the airport uh can go to zero emissions, which will be the first airport in the world uh that is zero emission.

Uh and so the idea of studying in this case other alternative energy options was the impetus of that uh request for information.

Um we issued this RFI or request for information in December, this past December.

We closed it on March 31st.

Uh we received 38 submissions from the private sector.

Uh the ideas range from what you see on the slide, battery storage, solar, uh small modular reactors or nuclear, uh, geothermal, and several others from companies all over the world.

Um we are in the process of reviewing all of those submissions.

We will come back to this body uh and let you know uh how we want to proceed.

We uh have committed to going back out to the community uh and uh letting the community know uh kind of where we are, what we received, the submissions, uh what they're about.

So we're very excited about uh the response from the community uh, which was uh when I say community, I mean world.

Uh and uh we believe that the interest in um looking at our alternative energy at this airport is the first application uh with regards to an airport ever uh for really looking at alternative energy uh in the ways that we're looking at it.

So we're very, very excited.

Uh we think that a whole new sector or industry um can uh be attracted to the Rocky Mountain region uh through this effort that we've done with this uh request for information.

That concludes our annual plan that uh we were asked to provide to this committee, and we are open for any questions.

Thank you so much.

Really appreciate the presentation.

Um I have councilwoman Al Vidras on the queue first.

Would you like me?

Yeah, thank you.

We can go online.

Thank you, committee chair.

Um, and thank you to the den team in the room for all of this information.

Um definitely appreciate all of the exciting projects.

Uh thinking about the experience, um, I noticed that the wait times kind of dipped down.

I'm wondering if that was when we were having the TSA issues from the federal level, or why the wait time uh experience went down in that graphic in one of the slides.

Yeah, so the it's overall has gone up based on those surveys.

Let me get back to that page.

So we just had like a period of time where it looked like it was going down from what I was looking at.

Um, yeah, so those were our summer months when we're very busy, and our our lines tend to get longer just because of the number of people moving through the airport, and that leads to customers' satisfaction dips.

Um, now it was interesting in 2025.

We didn't see it quite as severe, but uh again, that's because the new checkpoints were open.

Great, that's good to hear.

And then of all of the projects that we have going on from you know, the car rental facility to the Great Hall.

Which ones do you expect to improve the customer experience the most?

Um I'll start and I'll ask Jim and our operations chief and our uh commercial officer to comment uh as well.

Um actually, I think all of them, uh how's that for a political answer?

Uh I think I run for office, yeah.

Never but no, I I really think that you have to point to the Great Hall as the one.

Uh the Great Hall, as you know, um, you know, had a tough beginning, you know, before our time.

Uh and we've stabilized it, and it's going to finish ahead of schedule.

Uh so I think to answer your question, I would point to the Great Hall uh as the key thing because everybody goes through that.

The conrac is important too, but not everybody rents a car.

Uh, but everybody goes to the Great Hall.

Uh and if I had to pick one for the future, uh, it would be the North Terminal expansion.

That one will prepare us for the next 50 years at this airport.

Amazing.

And then I was at the airport recently and did struggle with wayfinding.

Has that been improved at all?

I mean, there was obviously the construction site keeps changing, and how you can access like the A um bridge uh was very challenging to find.

And so I'm curious how you're managing wayfinding during this time of construction.

How is it looking over there?

Yeah, I think you know, one of the biggest challenges is to uh maintain that that uh customer path getting through the facility.

We're constantly moving things around with walls, and so we have put a big focus on that.

Right now, we're building a lid over that escalator at the north end.

When you exit the uh checkpoint to go across the A bridge there, um so that will improve here shortly when we remove the construction walls and open that up.

Um, on the concourses, we've gone through the wayfinding, all the signage has been updated on concourse B.

We're looking at a project to update that on A and C as well, and so that's in the works.

Um, but we're always mindful that, you know, there's people who are used to, you know, they have their same routine every time they get dropped off, they go have their same route, and sometimes we disrupt that.

And so to make sure that we have clear wayfindings so people can get through.

Yeah, I appreciate it.

I know the bridge was only accessible through one side last time I was there.

It was very confusing, and a lot of people like the bridge for that walkability, and I appreciate in the future not depending on the train because we all know that it goes viral every time the train is down, and so many people immediately get stuck, and it just the amount of people that pile up in those short moments of the train being down, is you know, very troubling.

It's very image troubling when people are posting it on social media.

And so I'm grateful for any plans to add walkability and bridges.

But lastly, my question is around the closure of Spirit Airlines.

Has that caused any problems?

Did they have leases at the airport?

Um, what does that look like for the airport?

Uh councilman, no, uh, they let they left us several years ago, so they have not flown into uh Den in a while.

So no impact to our operation, although I do want to commend United Airlines.

If you have not noticed, they have offered uh discounted fares for for passengers who had tickets on Spirit Airline, as well as um connecting with some of their employees who are no longer employed.

So I did see that online and wanted to acknowledge them for that for their efforts.

Yes, I did hear that from them as well.

That's a great, I'm glad to hear it.

Thank you for your work, and that's all I had.

Madam Chair, thank you for allowing me the opportunity.

Thank you, Councilman L.

Jess.

Councilman Cashing.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Um on the rental facility.

I was having a little bit of trouble uh with the map.

How far is it from the terminal?

How am I getting there?

Not quite a mile from the terminal.

And we are still um uh talking with the private sector on the technology that we want to use.

We did not want to predetermine what that technology is just yet, whether it's an APM or something else.

There's a number of things out there.

Help me out.

The automated people mover.

Okay.

So that is uh sort of a rubber tire train in in many cases.

Uh but we will make a decision on that shortly of what that technology is, the transport.

We're calling it a common transportation system for now.

Um as we study technologies around the world uh to go from the terminal to uh the conrad.

Um we're blessed that it is not as far in terms of distance from the terminal as other consolidated rental car facilities are.

So if you go to Los Angeles, theirs is like two miles over two miles.

Um midway is a couple of miles.

Um so ours is relatively close.

Is it envisioned in the area where the current strip of rentals are?

It is, okay.

It is so that's basic okay.

Yep, great.

Um, that'll be a nice addition.

Um, as far as security goes, um uh my experience is it is totally transformed my uh experience of dead.

Um for me, the long lines are gone.

Uh it's it's spiffy clean, it's quick, it's easy to navigate.

Do you have any like data on how much it has reduced wait times or has it?

Is it just my perception?

No, it definitely has, and that was one of the big reasons that we were so successful during the government shutdown when you saw other airports that struggled Houston, Atlanta.

Uh and we maintain fairly short lines through uh that uh to put a number to it, it's probably about a 30% increase in throughput.

Um, so we could so that's throughput per lane per hour.

So that's up about 30%.

Yeah, okay, great.

Um, yeah, that's that's all I've got.

I I am interested to see those uh new concourses.

Uh the walk walkable north concourses.

And tell me again, what what's timeline on those?

Yeah, I think we were showing uh through 2033 to build the processor piece.

So that's the piece of the blue roof that Phil was talking about, and then we would expand from there.

And the the great thing about that is it's scalable.

So if our traffic is way up, we can build more gates at one time, or we can build less.

So we would build the gates after we build that first processor piece.

Is there anywhere in I think at one point in the past few years, it seemed like I heard some discussion about an entire lean separate second terminal?

Is that anywhere in the thought processes?

Uh no, um, what we showed on the slide are those walkable concourses coming off that that facility.

Um, we that is not in our master plan.

Something separate and distinct in term in terms of uh a terminal.

I think our layout's similar to Atlanta.

Atlanta did build a terminal, what would be like on our north end and connected it back and forth, but we don't have that in our master plan right now.

Okay, thank you, guys.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you.

Um thank you all so much for the presentation.

I do have a couple of questions that I'm I'm curious of.

One of them is regarding the direct flight to Africa, and I'm just curious as to where you all in terms of your um progression towards that.

Yeah, well, one of the things, thank you for that question, uh, madam chair.

Um, you know, we the ball is in um Ethiopia's court.

Okay, um, our target was Addis Ababa.

Uh and uh don't want to speak for them, but um, first initially they had aircraft availability issues.

Okay, and this is stemming from what was happening at Boeing.

Now, the Boeing issue has improved drastically now, right?

Uh so they're back up to um uh production levels that they were at, you know, originally.

Uh and so that's resolved.

Uh when we last talked with them, they wanted to do Houston before Denver.

And yeah, who knows?

Um uh they are very very close to Houston now, if they're not already.

Okay.

Uh and so we I I actually just speaking for myself, I see that happening within the next two to three years of direct flight.

Uh there's some technical things that have to be worked out, perhaps a uh a technical stop, a technical stop being refueling.

Okay, primarily, um, because the elevation of Otis is actually higher than Denver.

Uh and so there are some uh adjustments that have to be made with regard from taking off from here, it would be hard to actually take off with a full tank and the weight uh of of the people in aircraft.

So there's some there they probably will still be a technical stop.

We got to figure out where that is.

We were looking at um uh a couple of places that could you know be technical stops, but we're very very much um uh aggressive uh on going to the continent of Africa.

The ball is in their court.

We have been talking to Ethiopian Airlines.

Okay, uh, which is state-owned, by the way.

Um, and so when you talk to them, you talk to the Ethiopian government as well.

Well, thank you for the update.

I appreciate it.

Um I have a question around the Great Hall, but I just want to commend you and your team on being able to get that back on track, um, being able to come in potentially under budget as well as um uh ahead of schedule.

I am just curious.

Uh you mentioned the ahead of schedule at six months.

Do you all have any any estimates in terms of under budget what you all are projecting that you might have in terms of cross savings?

Uh I do not want to say because we've got too much time left.

We've got about a year on the project, you just never know what can happen.

I will say this: we will be under budget.

You listen.

You speak with authority, I believe.

Um thank you for that.

And then the NEPA, you mentioned NEPA as well, and you were in the middle of the community engagement process.

What is that?

What does that look like, and how long is that in terms of a timeline that you all would be engaging community?

Yeah, so we held the uh uh first public meeting earlier this year, our second meeting.

So the first meeting is to go over kind of to set the stage.

We've done a master plan in the past, and so to talk about uh you know what we looked at previously, what the challenges are in the corridor, get the feedback from the community.

We will go back out in July for our second public meeting, and that'll show different options uh based on our master plan, what we've heard from the public.

Get feedback on those as far as you know what what's going to be the best solution for Den, the community uh to address the issues there, and then we'll come back at the end of the year uh with the final meeting to show this is our preferred alternative and get comments back on that.

Um those are both in-person meetings that we had.

The the last one was at uh Green Valley Ranch uh recenter, but it's also an online, and we got really good participation, uh, both online and in person.

That was my fault.

That was my next question.

And then once you have this in, I think you said at the end of the year where you would show the alternatives.

Is that what you said?

Well, yeah, we'll show the preferred alternative at the end of the year.

And what happens after that?

So at that point, we will uh based on the feedback that we get, we'll take a look at the um whatever impacts there are with that option.

Um the federal sponsor of this project is at uh federal highway administration.

So at the end of that, there's a decision document that's put together that outlines exactly what the project is at that point, and so then once that is done, um then we can move forward with implementing whatever the the outcome is.

The preferred.

Got it.

Thank you so much for that.

Um for the conrec, you mentioned that you all were in communication with other cities.

Have you all heard anything from other cities in terms of like when they've executed and implemented their conrects, what they've learned, and they're like definitely don't do this, or absolutely make sure you implement this.

Yes, um, and and I you know welcome my colleagues to chime in on this.

I think uh we've heard quite a lot.

Yeah, sure.

Quite a lot.

Uh to give you an example of one thing uh that we learned uh and that is keeping the facility and the transport separate.

Okay, not putting those in as one big project, if that makes sense, right?

Okay, we have kept those separate, and that is a result of what we heard uh from other airports that are doing this, and so and one of the big reasons for keeping these things separate is the uh transport has a different sort of risk matrix attached to it.

Uh, if you are going to borrow money to do that, if that makes sense, right?

Um it has a it it it's it's sort of a moving uh infrastructure asset, um, you know, uh automated people mover versus a facility itself, uh which is the conract facility itself, and so we have kept them separate, um the facility uh being built on its own and the transport being done on its own, like literal, literally separate locations.

Well, separate projects.

Okay, so just the projects, not necessarily in terms of location or proximity.

That's right.

Yes, some airports actually did both of them together as one project.

Yeah, and the integration of both of those becomes very, very problematic.

Right, right.

Um, and so that is one huge lesson that we've learned, and we're implementing as uh them as two separate projects.

I don't know if you got another example.

I would think a good example.

Um, if you heard us talk about this a couple years ago, we were going into it thinking we could do an all-electric uh consolidated rail car facility, that would be the first one in the country.

Um feedback from industry was they weren't ready for that yet.

Um, but the lesson learned is there were other um recently opened consolidated rental car facilities that just didn't have the infrastructure in place to meet that charging need, and so we will implement we pivoted from saying it's 100% electric to 100% EV uh capable, right?

So we'll put in all the conduit and and have all that in place so that when industry is ready we can make that transition over.

One more thing too, and I don't know if uh Mr.

Herman wants to comment on this, but there's a lot of interface with the rental car companies, yeah.

Uh and so Chris's group is having that conversation uh with them as well.

Uh I don't know if you want to comment on that.

Yeah, councilman.

I was in Los Angeles this morning and the previous day to see uh LA's con it is the largest in the nation.

It's 6.4 million square feet, 21,000 spaces, and so we had an in-depth conversation how they were negotiating with the car rental companies because they are key partners in that, and interestingly enough, um, there was a dialogue back and forth about electric electrification when it came to that.

So, yes, we're we're touring.

I've been to Phoenix as well.

We're we're looking to see all the pros and cons of that we're gonna have an exceptional piece once once we get that up and running.

Fantastic.

That's great news.

I'm glad you all are um learning from other cities, that's fantastic.

And then my final question is around the the uh C-West expansion expansion, and you said you made the sub-the prime, and now the prime the sub.

How do you work that out?

Like, do you is that happen at with writing the RFP?

I'm just so curious as like how do you have the opportunity how do you create the opportunity to expand a sub into a prime and then to have a prime of typical prime be able to support um a typical sub?

We put it in the request for proposal okay as a requirement uh that a small business would lead this project.

Okay, and that we uh preferred a uh traditional large business or traditional uh govern uh general contractor to sub.

We did that for a couple of reasons.

One is uh uh to show that small businesses can lead big projects, number one, and the requirement that the larger company that is the sub would mentor the small business.

So there uh uh we've put uh mentor protege agreements um within the RFP.

So this is about writing it in the RFP and not wishing that someone will do it.

Yeah, right.

Um because uh, you know, if if you wish, it usually doesn't happen.

And you know, wish is not a strategy.

It just isn't.

I appreciate that.

So yeah.

Yeah, no, that's that's fantastic because we we don't see that typically, obviously outside of the airport.

Um, when it comes to contracts, I appreciate that you all were thoughtful in that um to be able to give the subs an opportunity to be able to expand because so often small businesses don't get those type of opportunities, and we keep using the larger primes because they have the capacity.

Thank you for that.

Those are my only questions.

I don't think anyone has anything else in the queue.

Good, I'm good, thank you.

All right, um, so thanks.

Yeah, thanks for the presentation.

With that, we have a couple items on consent, six items on consent, and we are adjourned.

Thank you.